Gossamer in the Darkness (Fantasyland)

“Satrine—”

“He hurt my sister and beat my mother!” she shouted.

Loren watched the bluster wilt, her face started to collapse, she tried to turn away, but instead found herself pulled into his arms.

Her body bucked as she attempted to hold back a sob.

“If you release it,” he murmured his advice, “you’ll feel better.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes, but also Maxine.”

He smiled. “Of course, darling, she looks exactly like you.”

She pulled away and locked eyes with him.

“She will never meet a handsome man, be backed into a desk and kissed stupid.”

As lovely as her words were (even the “kissed stupid” part, as they were strange, but obviously a compliment), they nevertheless swept the smile clean from his face.

“She will never dance at a ball, and she’ll never drive a carriage and she’ll never, I don’t know…there’s so much she’ll never do, because of him, I can’t even say it all.”

“Satrine—”

“I know exactly what happened. He decided what she could do…at six…and she was going to do it, no matter the consequences.”

Loren grew quiet not only because there was no reply to be made, she was correct, and she was correct to be horrified by it, but also because she needed to get this out.

“Do you know how much it hurts when someone hits you in the face?” she asked.

He felt his mouth tighten, for he did, but it infuriated him that she did as well.

“It hurts, Loren, a lot. And I can take it. But he did that to my mom.”

“He can’t harm any of you again.”

She sat facing front and crossed her arms on her chest, declaring, “I’m going buy so many gods damn gowns and hats and ribbons and slippers and boots and…and…whatever the hell else I can think of…so if he cuts us off, we’ll have outfits for years we haven’t even worn. I don’t care if we’re living in a shack.”

“However, you won’t be living in a shack,” he reminded her. “You’ll be living in a townhome or a country manor or a chateau or a castle, depending on where we are in the Northlands.”

She looked to him. “I didn’t forget, honey. But don’t cut into my drama.”

Honey.

Mm.

He liked that.

And she was now jesting.

It was a tossup, but he might like that better.

“How many properties do you own?” she asked.

“Many,” he answered.

“Ballpark me.”

“Sorry?”

“Give me a hint.”

He again deliberated briefly on the odd language she and her mother devised after years of having only each other for company before he did a mental count.

He then said, “Six. Sorry, no. Eight.”

She stared.

He grinned.

“Well, one could say that’s a step up from a three-room cottage miles outside of Aisles,” she quipped.

He kept grinning, because for the first time in his entire life, the vastness of his wealth and privilege had meaning.

“One can indeed say that, my dearest.”

She turned more fully to him.

“So, here’s the thing, my handsome, noble fiancé, I’m done with all of that. It’s now your turn.”

He was confused.

“Pardon? My turn?”

“My drama. Good-bye. It is officially no longer all about me. It’s time to get to know you.”

Loren felt his neck get tight.

“So, we have a few minutes before we’re back home, tell me something I have to know about Loren Copeland, the handsome Marquess of Remington,” she pressed.

“Right now, as is my state almost constantly when I’m around you, I wish to kiss you.”

Her sweet tongue came out to wet her lower lip, he turned more fully to her as well, but she said, “Not that. Something else.”

Right.

Something else.

How about the fact you’ve asked, and I feel unable to answer, which makes me wonder if my father is correct, and I have some addiction to danger, living for years eradicating King Baldur’s final followers in the way my then prince, now king, instructed me to do, which is not for a gentlewoman’s ears.

As such, much of what I did after is also not for your ears, as I was either seeking adventure, balls-deep in woman, righting wrongs in often brutal ways or participating in fights that either simply came about because of the company I was keeping, or I caused. I have vast experience both hitting men in the face or getting hit in my own. Thus, I know precisely how that feels to give and to receive, as you witnessed me doing the same to your father, and then some.

At the end of it all, the last twelve years I used might for right, creating death and destruction, and now…there’s you and I have no bloody clue what to do with you.

“Loren?”

“Often, my father would take me out of school for the holidays a day, or two, or even a week early, because he would have some great adventure planned for the two of us, and we would need to give it the proper time. Traveling to Bellebryn so I could pilot a galleon around the bay. Going to Paisall to attend their tournament, which is the best in all the lands. Even sailing to Lunwyn to ski, or down to Benies, simply because Fleuridian warmed chocolate is delicious, even better than you can find in Lunwyn, though that is hotly contested between my father and me.”